


Love and Hate

by blcwriter



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Amorality, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Break Up, Dark, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Families of Choice, Getting Back Together, M/M, Mind Meld, Originally Posted on LiveJournal, POV Second Person, Violent Sex, Vulcan Language, dark fic is dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-06 17:26:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4230519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blcwriter/pseuds/blcwriter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Title:  Love and Hate<br/>
Author: blcwriter<br/>
Rating: NC-17 for language, violence, sexual violence (no actual rape) and M-M sex.  Not super-gory,  but very Dark Trek.<br/>
Disclaimer:  My name isn't Abrams, Orci or Kurtzman.<br/>
Pairings: Kirk/McCoy, Spock/Uhura<br/>
Words: 9088<br/>
Summary:  <br/>
<br/>
In the back of your mind was what he'd said the night before you all boarded Enterprise for this mission.  "<i>You're going to hate me sometimes, the things I'm going to do to keep the crew and the ship safe.  You need to accept that</i>."<br/>
<br/>
Even in the Federation, there are times when accomplishing the needs of the many means sacrificing more than just lives.  McCoy learns what Uhura means when she says " <i>They take that stain on and don't expect anyone to understand, which is why they need us to love them."</i><br/>
<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Love and Hate

  
You'd always hated killing.  It wasn't just your doctor's oath to do no harm-- it was antithetical to who you were before you knew what a doctor _was_ but you still brought home rabbits and birds and snakes to take care of.  Your Gramps shook his head when you were a mite because you wouldn't learn to handle a shotgun, but he never pressed you.  You admitted it was perverse to enjoy the occasional fistfight, especially the ones where you were wading in to pull out friends-- mostly Jim-- who were getting the snot pounded out of them-- but at least you always gave Jim shit afterward, it simply not being wise for him to always throw the first punch.  You supposed it was some kind of triumph that he started fights just under half the time right before they gave him Enterprise.

At Starfleet, though, not learning the basics wasn't an option.  You'd gritted your teeth through the phaser proficiency tests and committed to memory the basics of starship weapons systems because everyone needed to know how to go down with the ship, not just the Captain.  But you purposefully ignored the fact that Jim and other command-track students were taking advanced classes having to do with weapons and fighting and other things, not all of it defensive-- the thought that Jim knew and someday might apply those things made you sick, so you shut the knowledge away in a corner of your brain you refused to visit.

Crazily, you could disconnect between Jim's orders to fire lasers and photon torpedoes at enemy vessels and planetside outposts-- something about the smell and feel and sound of your patients dying when the same happened to Enterprise made that disconnect possible.  Somehow, kill or be killed worked in those abstract circumstances.

No-- what you hated was the ritual combat thing, the hand-to-hand fights, the willing engagement in fights to the death by Security and Jim and Spock-- the latter two victorious so far in that they weren't ever dead for more than a few seconds.  There _had_ to be some way to get out of those situations besides deliberate slaughter.  You had no idea how, you were a doctor, not a tactician, but Jim and Spock were canny and brilliant in their own ways and yet still engaged in killing men, eye to eye, as part of their jobs.

When Jim came back bloody and bruised, bones broken or otherwise hurt, your anger at the killing was mostly manageable because you weren't there and could pretend he'd been defending himself and hadn't gone in eyes open, intending to fight to the death.  He'd put up with your with your furious scolding, your insults and rough handling-- jabbed hypos and untender pushes on bruised, swollen flesh that conveyed your furious fear that one day he'd never come back.  What was worse, though, was your unholy terror that one day you wouldn't just hate him a little.  Someday he'd kill someone and you wouldn't be able to forget it and forgive him and think of him the same way.

He let you take it out on him for the most part, giving you shit back as you needed him to.  But in the back of your mind was what he'd said the night before you all boarded Enterprise for this mission.  " _You're going to hate me sometimes, the things I'm going to do to keep the crew and the ship safe.  You need to accept that_."

You'd nodded, taking it then for maudlin drunkenness borne of the fact that his mother had ditched her son's graduation.  It was only after the first time he came back with Spock, covered in alien blood from killing eight men between them in some abomination of an arena fight that you understood-- because the two of them were almost completely unharmed and Security kept talking about how _easy_ the Captain made it all seem.  All you wanted to do in that moment was never speak to Jim again for the way he _accepted_ this was his job, even though you could tell it hurt him to do it.  It didn't hurt him _enough_ was all you could think.

You snapped after he was attacked and fought and killed six men on his own.  He had only one broken rib and a few bruises to tell for the tale-- he'd gotten too good at this, too soon, and it was suddenly too much.   The unimaginable ferocity of what must have let Jim kill those attackers made you so furious that it burned through that wall you'd erected between being best friends and the far more intimate thing the two of you were even though you'd never had sex.  You barged into his quarters where he was actually resting like you'd ordered him to-- it only made you more furious.  You seized him and fucked him until your fury abated and he just _took_ it _,_ letting you work it out of your system until you realized he was running his hands over your back soothingly-- _for fuck's sake_ \-- while he grunted and tried to say you were okay and it was okay and that he understood as you pummeled him into the mattress.  It just made you more angry because how _dare_ he fucking understand this, you wanted him to fight back-- but you were slamming into him so hard and so fast that all he could do was grunt and cry out at the end of each thrust.  Your fury held you back from the edge long after Jim clenched and shouted in painful release around you-- until you grabbed the side of his face and ordered him to look at you while you slammed together again, calling him "mine," and his whimpering "yours."  He opened those damnable eyes of his-- the ones you could always read even when his Captain's face was impassive-- and he might as well have said it aloud, the message was so clear.  _"I told you you'd hate me."_ It ripped your release from you like alien claws in your heart.  He rasped "yours," again.

Even as you collapsed and shuddered on top of him, he held you and rubbed your back and kept saying "shh, Bones, it's okay" until you sobbed at the fact that he accepted this too.  You were horrified when you came back to yourself, smelling the copper tang of blood in the air and feeling that things were wetter between the two of you than they should be and knowing you'd hurt him-- but he held you as you tried to lunge away, sickened and panicked, hauling you back to hold you closely as he said "Not yet, I'm okay for now, not yet, don't run away." 

Godfuckingdamnit, that bastard comforted you, that calm Captain's voice of his in your ear telling you it was okay until you believed him.  When he finally fell asleep, still holding you to him, you disentangled yourself and returned with your medkit, hating yourself as you pressed a hypospray gently into his neck so you could see what you'd done and take care of him.

He'd been right that he was basically fine, but the thought of it still burned through you as you watched him sleep the rest of the night.  You didn't know that he'd gotten out of the bed or that you'd nodded off until he ran a hand through your hair, kissed your forehead, said "Sleep some more, I set the alarm" and was gone.  You were left blinking awake at his departure to find yourself in his bed and one of your clean uniforms set out on his bedside.

It happened-- though less ferociously-- the next three times he came back from a killing mission, and each time you fucked your hate into him until the fact that he always looked you in the eye the next morning and treated you the same as he ever had made you really believe that last wall was gone and had nothing to do with what you thought was just anger.  That realization over a solitary tumbler of bourbon late one night in your quarters carried you to the door of the man who was no longer just your card-playing, bar-brawling, hard-drinking, laughing best friend-- but something more that you needed that was missing before-- that you'd walled yourself off from before.  He opened the door to your chime-- after a moment's realization that you hadn't just barged your way into his quarters, he gave you such a sweet smile of surprise that there was no question, ever, of not sleeping in the same bed with him every night.  You loved him more than you hated him, even though you never said either aloud, and  he helped draw the hate from you every time he came back blood-spattered or bruised.

No one seemed to care you two were involved.  "Allus thought ye twain were already more'n let on, ye ken," Scotty almost incomprehensibly slurred at the end of one of the more drunken senior officers' poker games, when you were all drinking his homebrew because it was still better than the shit from the replicator.  Sulu and Chekov had just hiccuped and nodded wisely as they slumped all over each other-- like they were so subtle-- while Uhura snickered and slurred "finally, and please can I watch?"  Spock, his human half slightly tipsy himself, just raised an eyebrow and murmured "Fascinating" when you barked "No!" and Jim just watched you with a teasing smile on his face.

\---

  
You thought you were over it-- mostly-- that your anger at Jim was fear for his safety and nothing else.  Until Uhura was hurt.  It was supposed to be a simple trade talk with her as interpreter since the inhabitants had a distrust of technology-- but it went sour, badly.  You and Scotty and Sulu and a med team were called to the transporter room to see what would materialize.

Jim and Spock bore a bloody, unconscious Uhura-- and three Security goons restrained a snarling alien.  Jim and Sulu exchanged one nod before Jim barked "Scotty, you have the conn" and ordered the redshirts to cart the prisoner off to the brig.  "Restrain him," he said tightly.  Scotty jogged off just ahead of Security.

"Jim," you rasped, reality a slow-dawning horror.  "Isn't Spock going to ..."  and Jim said a clipped "No," while Spock _snarled_ an animal " _Sickbay, now_ " at you and hovered over his _mate_.  Spock would not be doing the occasional sickening mind-meld to obtain information today and you needed him to-- Spock felt less and so you didn't have to hate Jim because of it.

"Sulu," Jim said calmly, "with me."  He looked at you once, those eyes of his saying " _Just save Uhura_ " before he was gone and all that was left were two things-- Uhura and the ship's snarling first officer.

Uhura was just stabilized-- a hard battle-- as Spock stood at her bedside and suppressed the subaudible growl you could feel through the floor-- _you forgot about the Vulcans' origin stories--_ when Jim strode back into sickbay, grim and spattered in blue alien blood.

"She's stable?"

You couldn't meet his eyes.  "She'll recover."

Jim turned from you immediately, standing before Spock and saying "Here," before pulling Spock's hand up to his face, opening his mind to his first officer.  It made you sick how he jolted slightly and went slack-jawed every time the two of them did this _\--_ it scared the shit out of you, but Spock's face smoothed and he pulled away carefully, holding Jim firm at the shoulder until the Captain shook off the meld.  "We'll talk when I return," he said to the Vulcan, pressing his shoulder, then turning to look give you a searching, wounded, needy, resigned look before he jogged out, a "Security's waiting" tossed over his shoulder.

Only then did you register that Sulu, grim-faced and blue-spattered, looked on.  "Where ... should I?" you rasped, swallowing bile at the thought that you were going to have to patch up something that hurt your friend and fellow officer and who your Captain just tortured to get whatever information now calmed Spock enough that he was no longer ready to rip someone's throat out. 

The helmsman gritted his jaw, an expression you'd seen on Jim's face before-- acceptance overlying hurt.  Just not enough. 

"No.  It's over," he said quietly, sharing a look with Spock that shut you out utterly.  They hadn't even left you a life to try to save.

It could never be, no matter what they thought, no matter how they were all of a mind with the Captain.  You'd never hated him more than right now, and it was all you could feel.  Jim was right that you would hate him-- and you hated him most for being right.

\---

  
Months went by as you just dealt with him as CMO-- only seeing him at senior officers' meetings or during necessary consults that Spock couldn't handle.  You never spoke with him about what happened-- you just shut him off and out of your life and tried not to notice how tired and worn he looked in the mess and at meetings.  You saw him play chess with Spock, saw him practicing languages with Uhura, saw him teach Chekov more self-defense and saw him sparring with Sulu-- then you hated him more because he kept going even though you could see how much you'd hurt him underneath a carefully neutral expression on his beautiful face and lean, muscular, utterly tense body.

Your fellow officers said nothing and kept seeking you out as before-- something that hurt and yet healed because unlike your divorce, which hurt far less than this, your friends didn't take sides.  They just didn't mention Jim and neither did you.  You never asked when Scotty began to swing by your office with his horrible moonshine at the end of a terrible day when you'd lost someone-- a habit you and Jim only ever practiced together.  You knew it wasn't Chapel's idea and were furious the first time it happened-- Jim wasn't supposed to take care of you when you hated him.  But you never kicked Scotty out, either.

You still took care of him as CMO-- it was still your job, he was still allergic to half the medications in the universe, and you knew his body and pain tolerances better than anyone else did, but he hadn't been badly hurt at all since Uhura was injured-- so you let Chapel tend to most of his minor injuries once you made sure he had no internal organ damage or bleeding.  You ignored as best you could the way he put up with the fact that you wouldn't look him in the eye and only asked him the bare minimum questions-- it was harder to ignore the tells in his posture when he thought you weren't looking and Chapel was dressing the newest wounds-- his body's slump said he didn't blame you for hating him.  The longer this went on, the harder it was to stay angry, and you needed that because if you couldn't, what did it mean about who you were?

The only person who said anything to you on the subject was Uhura.  On the day you released her from sickbay, she took your hand and made you look at her.  "Leonard," she said, pressing her fingers on yours.  "They do it so no one else has to."

"That's not reason enough."

She'd looked at you sadly.  "It is.  Think about it.  I'll be here when you're ready to talk." 

You hadn't talked to her yet.

\---

  
XT37-- the charter colonists at war with an influx of recent settlers who decided that genocide was easier than abiding with the colony's homesteading rules.  Enterprise bombed enemy encampments into submission, stabilized the existing government, sent Security in to clean up the enemy camps, brought both sides' wounded to neutral places where you could direct the planet's medical staff and your own in how to proceed-- when a biological weapon, a compound that only worked on the colonists' particular genotype roared over the planet, the losers' final solution. 

You worked around the clock, only finding a counteragent after a bloodied and grim-looking Jim ran in to sick bay to tell you the original source of the poison underlying the toxin.  You ignored how he got the information-- his shaking hands told you what you didn't want to think about.  Instead you just kept working, finding the agent and commandeering every replicator and free-standing crew member on the ship to get down to the planet to inoculate everyone.  Jim personally took doses for two hundred.

It worked.  Three quarters of the infected survived and the non-medical command staff oversaw the further surrender of those genocidal bastards and the re-organization of the planet's resources-- you followed up with the planet's medical directors and assured yourself that there was adequate potable water and enough emergency foodstuffs.  It was the longest two and a half weeks of your life, and at the end it was surreal to be in the capital's quiet streets in the sunshine with rubble everywhere.

Chekov and Scotty stayed with the ship when the planetary governors had the crew's senior officers to a private dinner for thanks and further planning until the Enterprise's relief ship arrived.  You had little to say by this point because you'd already done most of what you could-- so you sat back and ate a full meal for the first time in weeks and watched your fellow ships' officers.

Sulu, Spock and Jim were exhausted, the weight of command clearly crushing, Jim most of all.  There'd been so much damned fighting, so many small bunkers to hunt out, and the three of them had headed Security teams all over the planet.  Jim looked heartbroken, not just weary.  Uhura shot you a glare when she caught you staring at Jim, her look clear.  _Fix this, you damned fool._ She was a talented linguist, she didn't need to speak to get her message across.

She was right.  There hadn't been time to talk to Jim during the crisis beyond your telling him what you needed as ship's doctor and him supplying it-- and you were so tired of hating him, you needed him too much to hold on to it.  But you had no idea where to start, how to repair things, so you slipped outside between dinner and dessert and headed out to the end of the gardens to think.

\---

  
There were blows, kicks and punches from so many directions at once that fighting was useless-- but you fought anyway until someone slammed your head into something stone, a wall, maybe, and there were hands clamping the back of your neck and pinning your arms down as something cold dug into your cheek.  Your head swam as somebody started _oh fuck no please_ carving something into back, a never-ending acid sting as voices you didn't understand growled through the pain and then _oh no oh fuck no Jim I'm so sorry_ someone yanked your pants down.

There was a crash and phaser fire and one of the bodies holding you down at your neck was now crumpled on top of you and all you could hear was more phaser fire than you'd heard in your life, though it was hard to tell through all the different kinds of pain you were feeling.  At last, there was silence as you could finally breathe when somebody pulled that weight from you.  "I've got you, Bones," Jim said then, pulling you backward into his chest, his arms under yours.  "I've got you."

\---

  
Lights were at full brightness in your sickbay when you woke-- you felt like-- well, like you'd been nearly beaten to death and practically raped by vindictive thugs-- but there was only one question. 

"Jim?"

Chapel came in to the room where they'd sequestered you, trying to push you back onto the bed as you sat up and dangled your legs over the edge.

"Time is it?" you barked.

"Six hours since..." she said, trailing off in an uncharacteristically distracted fashion.

"What?  Where's Jim?" you growled.  Something was wrong.

Her face faltered.  "Dr. Malvern's working on him."

_Six hours?  Fuck._

__"What happened?" you rasped, pushing her away as you shoved your way to the supply cabinet and stripped down right there to pull on some scrubs.

You were washing up when Spock appeared by your side, looking goddamnedfucking worried.  "Jim took a scatter array while we were in the process of getting you into transporter range," he said tiredly.  It was very, very bad if Spock looked worried and tired.

You'd never understood how Jim could keep fighting after he'd been seriously wounded, no matter your own endurance in surgery-- after all, you'd never had to operate while beaten up as badly as Jim tended to be.  But now it was just _thrumming_ through you, that whatever it was that made how much pain you were in completely irrelevant.  Chapel started to protest and Spock cut her off firmly with his own command voice.

"The doctor will do as he needs to, you are to assist him as he orders," he said, a look of worry and determination and hurt on his own face that pierced you right through.  Uhura was right. 

_They do it so no one else has to._

__"Kill every motherfucking last one of them if you have to," you snarled, pushing in to the O.R. and barking at Malvern to get out of the way.

Spock's "already done" straightened your spine in a way you could never hate yourself for.

\---

  
It took another four hours and you and your team invented five new techniques on the spot when it seemed like there still weren't enough hands to clamp bleeding and seal wounds and repair organs even though there were more hands working on Jim that there was physically room for.  That last hour, you closed him out personally, Chapel giving you stim sprays and shoving straws from water bottles into your mouth-- and then you were done and Jim's signs were stable and he looked so fucking young and so fucking small and there was so much fucking _blood_ everywhere.

On automatic pilot, you saw Jim cleaned up and transferred to a room.  You likewise got yourself cleaned up and into a new set of scrubs while  Malvern and Chapel reported to Spock.  Numbly, you pulled a chair up to the side of his bed and sat, the cuts on your back starting to pull and sting now that he was stable.  At some point as you sat there and watched his vitals, the shallow breaths rising and falling, someone came up behind you-- Uhura. 

"He'll be fine, Leonard," she said, pulling your head back to rest against her stomach as she stroked her hands through your hair.  You were too tired to be anything but soothed by the intimacy.  "You saved him and he knows not to argue with you about getting better."  She was the only one who could make "Leonard" sound almost as musical as "Bones," and right now she just kept telling you that you'd done it and that Jim would be fine.  This woman, who'd nearly been killed herself on one of these damned fool ships missions had accepted the fact that her Captain and _mate--_ because that was clearly what Spock's snarling meant that day-- had killed for her with more wisdom than you'd ever had.  It broke you.

She came to the front of your chair and pulled your head to her again while you clung to her with both arms and sobbed into her dress.  When you stopped, she was still raking one hand through your hair. 

"I hated it at first," she said from above.  "Hated Spock for accepting it, even though I knew full well that it was inevitable, that peacekeeping sometimes means peacemaking and weapons and killing-- I hated him for finding someplace inside himself to kill as quickly or as brutally as was called for.  I accused him of hating every person he killed."

She paused a long moment, then continued.  "He told me he didn't hate anyone that he killed-- it was only a matter of loving the ones he was protecting."

"They have a wider definition of love than we do, because they know we might hate them and yet they keep doing their job.  Spock said he hated the ones who hurt me, and that was why Jim forbade him from getting the information to root out that insurrectionist cabal.  He wouldn't let Spock have that blood on his hands, no matter how much Spock wanted it at the moment.  Jim knew that afterward Spock wouldn't be able to go back to doing what they have to to keep the rest of us safe.  It's why Spock went back down to the planet once you and Jim were back here-- he won't let that blood get on Jim's hands any more than it already was."

In your exhausted, dazed state Uhura's words burned through you, consuming the few last bits of poisoned emotion not already destroyed during your frantic drive to make Jim _live, godfuckingdamnit._

"He's not going to forgive me," you mumbled into her stomach.

Her words both cursed and absolved you.  "He doesn't think he needs to forgive you.  It's the opposite.  They hate what they do in their own way, but they keep going because leading is who they are.  They take that stain on and don't expect anyone to understand, which is why they need us to love them.  And ... you don't have to understand it, I don't know how they can do it.  I'm just grateful they do and grateful that Spock needs me to help him.  You just have to let Jim know you want to help him.  That's all you have to do."

Her words wrecked you and you heaved another sob into her dress.  Like a rock, she just stood, holding and petting you until you cried yourself out.  At some point you had no energy to go on, and she gently pushed you back in your chair. 

"Here," she said, a sad smile on her face.  She wiped your face off with a towel like you were a child and then held something else up.  "Just curl up here, okay?"  She urged you to cant sideways in your chair, placing a pillow under your head-- and _oh_ , it was one of Jim's because it smelled like him, and _oh, again_ , she'd brought that throw from the bottom of his bed that you always made fun of but he kept because Admiral Pike's mom made it for him.

"Get some sleep," she said gently.  "I'll come back later, okay?"

You nodded because you didn't have it in you to argue with her because she was so totally right, then scooted sideways in your chair so you could still hold Jim's hand while closing your eyes.

"It'll be okay, Leonard, I promise," she said, smoothing your hair back one last time and kissing your forehead.  "Promise."

\---

  
It was going to take days for Jim to wake up, as expected with such a massive bodily insult, and he was responding and healing just as he should.  You managed to perform the duties only you could and delegated the rest to Christine and Malvern, spending the rest of your time at Jim's bedside, just watching and waiting and trying not to rub his hand raw under your worrying fingers.  No one said anything about your vigil or accused you about how Jim came to be injured.  It didn't matter-- every minute he didn't wake up was its own accusation. 

If you'd just made up with him before-- told him before you went down to the planet that you were sorry-- told him you didn't understand but that you loved him anyway like Uhura said was all you needed to do-- then you'd never have gone out to be by yourself after that dinner and left yourself open to being carted off by a vestigial cadre of insurgents intent on revenge because the Enterprise got in the way of their genocide. 

You interacted with Spock as was needed, keeping him up to date on Jim's condition and conferring with him and the planet's medical authorities regarding remaining aftercare details, hating the fact that the normally stoic Vulcan had human sympathy in his eyes even as he dealt with you and bore clear worry for Jim-- in light of that, you couldn't call him anything but "Spock" or "Commander,"  had to abandon your habit of calling him all of those epithets to remind yourself that he practically killed Jim at the start of this whole fucking adventure.  Your medical staff knew to keep it professional and pretend like nothing was different, except for the fact that Christine bullied you into letting her treat the worst of your injuries and kept bringing you food and poking you until you ate, saying harshly "If you don't eat then he can't yell at you for being a selfish bastard before this all happened, you stupid masochist, so eat something, you fool."  You ate.

Your self-loathing only increased despite the hours Uhura spent sitting and holding your hand, lending her quiet presence and belief that you and Jim would get past this.  The fourth night of your vigil by Jim's bedside, however, the person sitting next to you wasn't Uhura but Spock.  He'd come down to visit Jim while you were attending to other things and you'd suppressed the urge to listen as Spock talked to Jim about something-- had Uhura put him up to it, or did he somehow know that humans needed people to talk to them even when they were unconscious and healing?  He'd never sat with you while you were with Jim and you steeled yourself for some reminder that you needed to take up more of your duties, something you damned well knew but weren't ready to face.

So you jolted when he said "You are blaming yourself for Jim's injuries when you should not, Doctor."  Before you could protest, he continued, his voice smooth and implacable.  "The cadre that accosted you was well-organized, and they were planning on singling out and taking each member of the away team in a methodical fashion.  You simply happened to be the first person to cross their path.  Had anyone else gone out to take air as one of us certainly would at some point, they too would have been attacked.  The Captain could have been hurt, any of us could, being attacked or attempting to rescue-- although certainly Jim was far quicker and more motivated to come to your aid."

It was almost impossible to believe Spock was sitting here telling you that this wasn't somehow your fault, and yet here it was-- you were speechless as you tried to come up with some protest.  All that fell out of your mouth was the thing that had been in the back of your head this whole time-- "It was never his idea in the first place," you heard yourself saying hoarsely, shameful tears pricking your eyes.  "I started it and he just ... accepted it."

Something shifted in the Vulcan's face, and he actually took your hand in his.  "You are aware that there are times when it is too difficult or slow for the Captain and I to use verbal communication and a mind meld is required?"

You nodded, noncomprehending.  You'd always been jealous that they shared an intimacy with each other that you never could, though you knew that their intimacy was merely that of brothers at arms or some other archaic concept-- but the fact that Jim allowed it meant there was some part of him you could never have.  What that had to do with now was beyond you.

"Beyond the communication at issue, there is always a certain amount of sharing of other strong thoughts or emotions between both parties that cannot be avoided since they are foundational aspects of our personalities-- but those things are private in a way that should not be discussed unless admitted aloud.  It is a matter of trust, since there are things that cannot be hidden that we would not otherwise share."  Spock looked at you keenly before dropping the bomb.

"Jim feels very strongly about you-- regardless of your thoughts on the cause for the shift in your friendship you should know that the Captain did not share any negative thoughts.  Whatsoever."

Your mouth was completely dry as you stared at him, watching with detachment as he brought his long fingers up to your face.  "Close your eyes," he directed, and you obeyed, listening to him murmur the traditional words that preceded a meld.

You were submerged in something dark, ready to drown when something _Spock_ caught you and led you forward, some incorporeal hand holding yours.  There was a slow flash of memories and feelings filtered through Spock's retention of Jim's memories and thoughts and then you saw Spock's own thoughts on the matter-- Jim's were the same-- and it was just as Uhura said. 

" _They take that stain on and don't expect anyone to understand, which is why they need us to love them."_

 __Time sped and slowed and didn't matter.  There was a layer of Spock saying _look, here, this is how it was before Nyota and this is how it would be without her_ and the rage he felt when _his mate_ was hurt and overlying it more joy and relief that _Nyota loves me_ than you would have ever given him credit for and for which you'd always be ashamed now.  He pulled you in to his memories of sharing with Jim as Jim thought _I'm glad that you have her_ and called him some longer iteration of Spock's name that could only be Vulcan that you'd never heard Jim say aloud-- and older memories said _my friend shieldbrother Jim is lonely_ , about whom he thought _loit-lej_ and _sa-kai_ , _puksu_ and _korsau_ and _t'k'war'ma'khon_ , the last term somehow encompassing a whole sense of the Enterprise and Spock's regret that the ship was all Jim had to love.

That sense of worry extended to Jim until that first time when you felt like you'd savaged him in his room, except Jim's memory of it in Spock's mind at some point when they'd melded was _at last someone for me_ and relief that it was you _my best friend I never thought he would want this_ and his telling Spock you were _ashayam_ and a deep sense of resolved loneliness that expressed itself as _Bones finally._ Jim had told you these things in words that weren't Vulcan, words that should have meant something to you, but you hadn't quite dared to believe him.

Then the two of you shifted to some other, deeper part of Spock, the part that snarled and snapped when Uhura was hurt, the images less words than emotions, unjudging ones that said _this is what Surak taught us to suppress_ and then went on to explain _but this is pon farr and it is necessary though painful to bring us forward into each new stage of our life and you and Jim had your own pon farr to bring you to the next turn of events._

Spock tugged you forward again-- you saw yourself through Jim's eyes as a warrior wielding a scalpel, someone so stubborn that death got tired of fighting with you over patients and abandoned the field.  Behind and with that image there was so much more, a stream of thoughts and images and remembered physical sensations so deep and warm that instead of drowning this time you were buoyed up at the thought of _best friend warm arms and good smell only person who understands so handsome beautiful dry laughter and more bourbon on bad nights he wants me only person who doesn't make me talk about it wry crinkled smile lines at his gorgeous brown eyes only person who takes care of me when no one else wants to makes me laugh Bones don't know why he puts up with me but oh, I'm so glad he does_ _kisses and oh God more Bones always and Bones_ _._

 __It was a mirror image of your own thoughts about him, except in one way-- he had no anger, no hurt, no regret for how it all started, just relief that it did and joy and release each time the two of you together, even when you were angry.  During and after each time he had to kill someone the thoughts were _got to protect Bones ashayam Enterprise even if he hates me for it--_ and he still thought that even after you'd pushed him away, along with _misshimmisshimmisshim_.  That same warrior urge had an echo in Spock's thinking _Nyota_ and _t'k'war'ma'khon_ and a whole deep layer of Spock's own thoughts on the woman that you backed away from because while you knew now he'd share that with you if it helped, it was unnecessary.  You jerked away from the contact, gasping in air to lungs drowning in too much truth all at once.  You had no idea why Spock hadn't already strangled you if he knew how badly Jim was hurting, respect for your and Jim's privacy be damned.

You were shaking with the shock of it all and were only dimly aware that Spock's hand was gripping your shoulder to support you in a firmer way than how he steadied Jim-- Jim who was used to this much truth, to knowing more and being more known that anyone should have to bear.  Except now, when you'd needed to know so badly.  You couldn't begrudge him the intimacy you used to be jealous of anymore-- because he was thinking of _you_ as he was melded with Spock and this knowing everything-- it was too painful and you knew now that both Jim and Spock sometimes wished it weren't necessary, as bonded like brothers as they were.

" _Ashayam_."  It was a rasped word, one that kept bouncing around in your head.

"Beloved," Spock translated quietly.  
   
You scrubbed at your eyes, the images still flickering through your brain though the contact was broken.  You drew in one shuddering breath after another and Spock waited silently until you sank back in your chair, hand over your eyes. 

"I shall leave you," the Vulcan said, standing.

"Spock," you rasped, trying to make your brain work.  " _Lesek_."  An inadequate phrase, but all you could recall right now.

"No thanks are necessary, Doctor," he said calmly.  "I have been in your debt since you returned my _ashayam_ to me.  It is only proper to do the same for you."

He was gone from the room before you could blink again-- so you turned back to look at Jim and spoke to him personally, just Jim, not the Captain in months.  "Wake up, Jim.  Please?"

\---

  
There was a hand in your hair, the touch tentative enough that it took you long moments to wake.  It was a weak touch and it wasn't Uhura, whose own hands on you were cool, firm and soothing like Gram's but not anything like this. 

"Sleepy," Jim's voice slurred.  "Know y're 'wake.  Allus stop snorin' when y'wake up."

"I do, do I?"  It was ridiculous that you were exchanging inanities with Jim, but there it was.  Stiffly, you pushed yourself up and looked at him-- he still looked too pale and too young and in need of serious recovery, but he was smiling that sweet only-for-you smile that he had when he woke up to you every morning.  He looked so relieved to see you when you should be the one begging forgiveness that you couldn't find words for a long moment-- you could only grab the hand he'd let drift to your cheek in both of yours and clasp it tightly while you stared at him. 

"Y're okay?" he asked groggily, memory clearly catching up with him about your own insignificant injuries, even though you had him on horse-doses of painkillers. 

"Fine," you said firmly, and it was true because none of those things mattered-- just the fact that he was okay.  "Damnit, Jim, if you ever scare me like that again..." you started to rant, then stopped when Jim smiled to himself, closing his eyes.

"What's funny, you goddamned drug-addled bastard?"

"Like when y'swear at me.  Din't swear t'me f'r while.  S'nice when y'cuss, means y'r not mad.  Hate when y'r mad."

Your heart broke at the childish way he said it.  "Fine, stupid brat.  Get back to sleep before I sedate you for overexerting yourself, you damned heroic moron."

He smiled again, muttering "Love y'too, Bones" before sliding back into sleep.  It was the first time either one of you had said the word aloud.

You could care less if everyone in the sickbay heard you crying again, this time in relief as you muttered "Love you too, kid" into his hand.

\---

  
In three days Jim was peevish and awake most of the time and desperate to get out of sickbay.  When he wasn't fretting about at least doing reports beyond talking with Spock, he was fussing at you to take it easy because "you got hurt too, you stubborn asshole and if you don't fucking rest how are you supposed to harass me the way you think I deserve?"

"Don't talk to me like that, Jim, I still have the hypos," you glared, and the damned bastard smirked at you in response.

"You just like to stick me with stuff, Bones, it's your unrelieved sexual tension that's making you so fucking cranky."

It did not help you maintain your authority when Chapel started snickering at you from the doorway to Jim's room.

After another day of nearly incessant nagging, you threw up your hands in frustration.  "What?!  What do you want me to do, Jim?  Take you back to your quarters and stay with you while you make sure I'm getting enough sleep because you'll finally stay where I put you?"

He blinked, thinking, then gave you a small pleading smile.  "Please?"

It was a pretty damned good idea, now that you thought of it.

By the time you got him back into his quarters, fussing the whole time, Chapel had arrived with some of your own things from your quarters.  "I only live on the other side of the deck, I can get things myself," you groused.  "Presumptuous woman."

"McCoy," she growled right back at you.  "Shut up and go take a nap with the Captain for the rest of the week.  Please."

So Jim got what he wanted and what you both needed-- staying holed up in his quarters like honeymooners or something while you made sure he ate enough and didn't do more than walk to the shower or switch seats from the bed to the living room-- and he'd flutter his eyelashes at you on purpose to make you take another damned nap with him.  You needed it, both of you-- and not just because every time he'd curl himself over you, those self-inflicted wounds on your heart healed over a little.  You'd been exhausted trying to keep up your anger at something that you'd been a fool not to accept as a fact of Starfleet life-- a horrible fact that was nevertheless outweighed by all the good you could do, all the things Enterprise meant and accomplished, and most important of all of that, Jim.  You wouldn't give up Jim for anything, now-- hard parts of this life notwithstanding.  
  
The night before you discharged the both of you to go back to full schedules, you discussed it seriously.  With his head in your lap because the kid never got enough of being petted, he was like a cat that way, he looked up at you and said "Well, one of these days you're going to get an alien virus while you try to cure everyone else first, but you keep working anyway, right?  Think of it this way, Bones.  It's better to heal things from inside, but sometimes you have to amputate.  You don't want to do it, but sometimes ... it's the only way to save the rest of the body.  It's barbaric, but ... well ... sometimes you have to." 

The expression in his eyes shifted again into that hurt and determined look he got and damned if Uhura was wrong because _now_ , you understood it.  Of course Jim was right-- the truth of it stabbed you through the gut at the realization that he'd never once said anything to try to stop you from doing your job, from being who you were-- a doctor, goddamnit.  It was the Captain's duty to kill if it meant protecting the Enterprise crew and the people under its protection and you'd still work yourself into an early grave if it meant protecting the patients under your care--crew, planet, space station, whatever.

_"T'k'war'ma'khon,"_ you breathed, gleaning the whole of that word floating around in Spock's mind.  Clearly, the idea was what drove you to be a doctor, that broad concept of family when it came to taking care of people-- but it hadn't been quite so concrete before, nor so clearly in line with what Jim was trying to do.

Jim's eyes narrowed as he looked up, reaching to lightly trace the pulse points the Vulcan had touched with one finger.  "Been talking to Spock, have you?"

"In a manner of speaking," you admitted, feeling embarrassed.  "He offered."

The hand tracing the top of your eyebrow came to the back of your neck and tugged you down for a kiss.  "I hope you thanked him," he said when he let you up for air.  "It's not comfortable."

"I did ... and ... no, it's not" you admitted, remembering what Spock had revealed about himself and wondering what all he'd read from you during the process.  Enough to still think that he was just repaying the debt and to deal with you the same way he ever had.  "But ... it was important."

Shifting, you lay down and rolled him on top of your chest until he was looking right at you.  "I was wrong, Jim, I'm sorry." 

His expressive mouth quirked.  "Damned right you were.  But I should have told you you were being an asshole, too.  So you tell me what's really bugging you and I'll tell you you're being a prick.  And vice versa.  Although I'm always charming, so it's not like you're ever going to have to tell me that I'm being an ass."

That was the end of the discussion, then, Jim's teasing a reliable way to let both of you to transition to less serious subjects and far more pleasurable ones-- which you could approve as his doctor, goddamnit.  One last physical checkup wouldn't hurt before you sent him back to full duty.

\---

  
Spock and Jim and several Security goons-- you shouldn't think of it that way but that damned Cupcake was still around and he was a goon if nobody else was-- beamed back from the planet battered and bruised.  The Vulcan and Captain came in bearing an ensign who was more banged up than the rest, then stood aside as you barked "Don't either one of you leave, I won't be that long and I know you'll both sneak off on me if I don't tell you to stay goddamned put."

You checked to see they were standing and rolled your eyes at the fact that the two of them were rolling their eyes at each other.  You patched up the ensign and handed him off to Christine, then jerked your chin at Spock to start checking him over.  The man stoically forbore your exam, then again forbore the cleaning and bonding of a few small knife slashes.  _A few small knife slashes, hah._ With a final satisfied grunt to your self you backed off and looked Spock straight in the eyes.  "You two are still comin' to dinner tonight, right?"

Spock's mouth quirked as he agreed.  "Since I am sure that Nyota has already agreed it would be impolite of me to refuse."

"Right," you drawled.  "Which is why I always ask her, first."

Spock's mouth quirked in humor again.  "Very logical, Doctor."

"Now, now, don't you go insulting me when I just patched you up.  Or is that flirting?  I never can tell."  You stood aside as Spock got up and pulled on his shirt, feeling him roll his eyes at you even with his back turned.

"I shall see you and the Captain this evening," he said instead and made his way out of sickbay.

"Sit," you ordered, but Jim already knew the drill and had tugged off his shirt with only a few hisses.  The tricorder showed nothing broken and no internal bleeding but significantly high levels of endorphins, which meant that he had to be feeling some serious pain somewhere. 

"Pants too, come on.  Don't pretend I didn't see you favoring that leg."  With a sigh, Jim toed off his boots and undid his pants, letting you tug them off the rest of the way.  The bruising over his quadriceps wasn't too bad but you didn't like the look of the swelling at the knee.  "Here, you moron," you said, pushing him to sit back on the bed.  "Hold this stim over your knee, right here, and I'll let you back up to the bridge in a half hour."

"What's it for?" Jim asked, sliding back and taking the small machine you handed him. 

"Your ACL is swollen, want to get that down so it doesn't tighten.  You snap that one time and you'll be off the away team for weeks and not just because I say so."

After all this, you'd found that Jim would shut up and stay put if you just told him what you were doing and why you were doing it, so you tossed him a PADD, said "Anterior Cruciate Ligament" and got back to work.  A half hour later the chime you'd set went off and when you went back over to check Jim was poking interestedly at his knee with a curious look on his face.

"If I'd known you'd stop being so goddamned contrary if I just gave you fucking reading material," you said, testing his range of motion and watching his face carefully for signs of discomfort, "I'd have started earlier and you'd be a damned doctor by now."

Jim snorted.  "Nah.  I like running my ship better.  I could never get your bedside manner down pat, and you're the best, which is the only thing I'd settle for anyway.  Better to be the best Captain instead."

You tossed his uniform at him, grumbling about taking it easy and not running anywhere for the rest of the day and no workouts with Sulu, goddamnit, when he smiled and grabbed the back of your neck, planted an openmouthed kiss on you that made you stagger a bit, then murmured "Love you, too, Bones" before sauntering out of the sickbay.

"Goddamned kid, thinks he can shut me up with those stupid lips of his," you mumbled, ignoring the smirks of everyone in the sickbay.  It was true, but it wouldn't do to admit.  
  
  


\---  
  


Jim wasn't the jealous type and hadn't said boo when you and Uhura sometimes played cards or had coffee or otherwise spent time together after Jim was back on his feet after XT-37, and while Spock still aggravated the ever-living shit out of you, it wasn't like it had been before.  Getting that glimpse of the depths under that still-water facade of his made it impossible to be as antagonistic as you had been before-- and he seemed, too, to be less skeptical of your motivations for things.  So Jim hadn't been too surprised when, after a harder mission in which he and Spock had to take on more than they ought, you'd suggested that Spock and Uhura have a private dinner in the quarters you and Jim now shared permanently.  "Good idea," he'd just replied seriously, then said he'd tell Spock.  
  
It had become a weekly tradition, not just one after hard missions, and the four of you had established a light banter that was just for the four of you, nothing overt outside the walls of your quarters-- it was one thing for the crew and fellow officers to know you four were all friends, but was another for them to feel excluded.  Too, it wasn't about backslapping or joking around, because this friendship was intimate, directly rooted in the understanding that the four of you weren't going to question or begrudge what you all had to do in your duties beyond the usual "be careful, goddamnit--" and dinner always started with the same toast, though you each took turns offering it.  " _T'hylara_."  
  
When dinner was done and the universe's most outwardly serene couple had set off for their own quarters, Jim would put the dishes and mess in the trash and you'd take turns haggling over who'd do what in the rest of the cleaning up that being so goddamned domestic and established meant-- something you welcomed because you were tired of doing it all alone and damned if you were going to let Jim do it, either.  
  
You were still frightened witless every time he went off ship, and he still minimized his injuries when he came back, but if you asked him what happened, he'd tell you-- and if he volunteered it because he was tired and it hurt too much to say nothing, you always listened.  It always ended the same way, though, and there was nothing angry or hateful about making sure every inch of his body still tasted and shivered and responded to your hands, mouth and the thrusts of your body with his, slow or fervid couplings that left you both utterly collapsed and him in your arms, smiling again as you called him _ashayam_ and beloved and he taught you what that word meant in the newest language he'd learned.  It was a five year mission and Uhura'd already added fourteen new languages to the two thousand thirteen ones already known-- if she kept going, there might eventually be enough ways to say it, words that all meant the same thing-- words that meant there was no room for hate.

  
___________________________________

ashayam-- beloved  
lesek--  thank you  
loit'lej-- chosen  
korsau-- preserve  
puksu-- fighter  
sa-kai-- brother  
t'hylara-- life long friends  
t'k'war'ma'khon-- belonging to/my extended family


End file.
